What prompted the calls and faxes was the decision by KOFY's owner and president, Jim Gabbert, to give live television coverage to this Sunday's 25th annual gay pride parade, the first time in the nation such an event has been broadcast live on commercial TV.

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Gabbert said Monday the threats would not cause him to change his mind about televising the parade.

"This is not just a gay event, it's an event for all of San Francisco," he said. "I thought it would be a really neat thing to broadcast it, and I still do. We're going to do it."

Gabbert's isn't the only San Francisco business to catch heat for its connection to events sponsored by the gay and lesbian community. Charles Schwab, the brokerage, had an investor threaten to pull his $3 million account over its financial support of this week's Frameline Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

The threat, from a Midwest investor, was made several weeks ago. But as of Monday, the investor had not actually pulled his money, according to Schwab spokesman Tom Taggart.

In recent years, Apple Computer, Continental Airlines, AT&T Corp. and Miller Brewing Co. also have faced threats of economic reprisal for their support of gay and lesbian events.

"We weren't supporting (the film festival) to make a political statement," Taggart said. "We were doing it because it was a good business decision. We feel like we're going to get some business out of this."

Marketing surveys consistently show the economic clout of the gay and lesbian community, often revealing it to be more demographically desirable than its most vocal opponents.

A study last year by Yankelovich Partners found that gays and lesbians were more educated that the average consumer, and that they were more apt to patronize new department stores, discount stores and mail-order catalogs. Gay and lesbian consumers, the study found, were more likely to spend their money on innovative new products, home furnishings and luxury vacations.

Laurie Falik, co-chair of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said threats and boycotts by conservative groups had escalated in the last three to five years as mainstream companies acknowledged the gay and lesbian community with their marketing efforts.

"There is substantially more willingness of major corporations to advertise in the gay-oriented media, and any time that happens you're going to have a backlash," she said. "It's a real test of corporate mettle. Who stands up to the heat, and who gets out of the kitchen?"

Gabbert said no advertisers had threatened to pull ads from his gay pride parade broadcast.

Initially, he said, one or two mainstream businesses that advertise frequently in gay-oriented media were hesitant about supporting the parade in the mainstream media,

"where Archie Bunker can see them doing it." However, Gabbert said, they eventually decided to advertise in the parade broadcast.

Televising the event will cost Gabbert around $20,000, and he said he expected to make back every penny on an event that regularly draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to San Francisco.

"If we break even this year, we'll be happy," he said.

"And I think we'll do even better than that. I think it will be like (KOFY's coverage of Cinco de Mayo). The first year we broke even, but five years down the road we were quite profitable."

Robert Allen, the parade's president, said he wasn't aware of any pressure on the event's major sponsors. Most of them, such as the Miller Brewing Co., Seagram, Evian and Odwalla, have been backing the event for years.

"We drink at least as much Evian water as the right-wing Christian coalition," Allen said. "It's a natural pairing for these companies to sponsor us.

"But we don't kid ourselves that any of our sponsors are doing this to be good guys, or for philanthropical reasons. They're doing it because they're smart business people, and they know this is a great way for them to promote their products." &lt;

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